Do the Impossible,” the man once known as Herman Poole Blount had a rare moment where he pulled back the cosmic curtain, letting people into his life, ...

PBS’s ‘American Masters’ presents a tribute to the eccentric, virtuosic pianist and composer, who combined swing with the ...

Bandleader Knoell Scott leads the Sun Ra Arkestra, performing at SFJazz on July 31, 2025. Photo by Frankie Solinsky Duryea. The Sun Ra Arkestra began the first of four San Francisco shows at SFJazz’s ...

Do the Impossible," PBS aims to tell the story of a man who defied conventionality as naturally as he breathed ...

Without the jazz musician, poet, and bandleader Sun Ra, the music industry would look and sound somewhat different. Countless mainstream artists have been inspired by his boundlessness and his ability ...

Patrons of South Side jazz clubs in the 1950s might have noticed something a bit different about pianist Sun Ra’s big band — slowly at first, then all at once. Their sounds became more far-out, the ...

Sun Ra, the trailblazing jazz musician, poet, and pioneer of the Afrofuturism movement, was also a utopian—both in outer space and here on earth. Known for a persona that mixed cosmic references, ...

Over the decades, music venues in San Francisco have come and gone, but one constant remains: Great American Music Hall. A house of ill repute when it first opened in 1907, the building has gone ...

In pre- and inter-performance comments, a plea pervaded pianist Sullivan Fortner’s Friday show at the University of Chicago: Can we be anywhere but here? Thank goodness Sun Ra and his music mastered ...

From swing to bebop to free jazz, Sun Ra bridged myriad musical styles to create a singular avant-garde sound, and with his ever-evolving collective, the Sun Ra Arkestra, he pushed the boundaries of ...

“Swirling,” the group’s first album of new recordings in 20 years, is an affirmation of how vital the band remains under the direction of the saxophonist Marshall Allen, 96. By Giovanni Russonello ...